After nine months, the Center for Civic Education (CEO) received, after nine months, the decision of the Ethics Committee of the University of Montenegro (UCG), which establishes that the director of the History Institute of the UCG, Dr. Radenko Šćekić, violated the principles of academic writing, by copying parts of texts without quotation marks of other people's work and that his published work was not written in accordance with the principles of academic writing.
Senior legal adviser Snežana Kaluđerović said that the Ethics Committee found that Šćekić had plagiarized the work "The Wealth of Diversity: Preservation of Cultural Identity in the Time of Globalization", but it is unusual that it does not see a reason for imposing sanctions.
"On the contrary, the Ethics Committee goes a step further by stating that Šćekić did not obtain grades, awards, titles and titles based on plagiarized work, and thus unconvincingly try to soften their own decision that it was plagiarism," said Kaluđerović.
CGO submitted an initiative against Šćekić to the Ethics Committee to review the violation of academic integrity at the end of 2023, before Šćekić was elected to the position of director.
CGO then appealed to the Board of Directors of UCG to hold off on his election to that position until the end of the procedure for plagiarism before the competent body of UCG and thus protect the institution from compromise.
"CGO's initiative was accompanied by extensive and well-founded documentation as evidence. We expected that, as proponents, we would also be invited to a hearing before the Ethics Committee, which was missed for inexplicable reasons. Thus, the Ethics Committee, apart from reluctantly approaching this case and procrastinating with his prosecution, violated the procedure because he was obliged to invite the CGO as the proposer, that is, deliver the invitation for the hearing in this case," said Kaluđerović and added that the Code of Ethics of the UCG clearly stipulates that the absence of the proposer is not an obstacle to holding the hearing, but only if the proposer duly invited.
"There is no provision in the regulations that the proposer is not invited to a discussion, and it is indicative that in making such a decision, the Ethics Committee did not want to have witnesses or those who might lead some wavering people into a situation where the decision is stricter, i.e. in the interest of full protection of the UCG as institutions," she believes.
They say that it is the responsibility of the Ethics Committee to, in accordance with the law, impose measures for violations of academic integrity related to plagiarism, falsification, fabrication, borrowed authorship and quoting out of context.
"In this case, the Ethics Committee did not impose a measure for the violation of the Code of Ethics for non-academic behavior of Šćekić, even though it is a person from the academic community who committed a serious violation of the principles of academic ethics, so the question remains who is powerful enough to protect at UCG in this case Šćekić's case. Although he received the decision of the Ethics Committee even before the CGO, Šćekić has not yet resigned from the position of the director of the Historical Institute, which is a new illustration of his (mis)understanding of academic honesty."
CGE called on Rector Vladimir Božović and the Board of Directors of UCG to dismiss Šćekić because he has discredited UCG and the Institute of History with proven non-academic behavior, because otherwise the decision of the Ethics Committee is meaningless, and a public message is being sent that those who in the academic community behave contrary to academic rules are rewarded .
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